4.10.035 Cellular telephone service – Income allocation and administration.
A. Allocation of Income.
1. Service Address. Payments by a customer for cellular telephone service from telephones without a fixed location shall be allocated among taxing jurisdictions to the location of the customer’s principal service address during the period for which the tax applies.
2. Presumption. There is a presumption that the service address a customer supplies to the taxpayer is current and accurate, unless the taxpayer has actual knowledge to the contrary.
3. Roaming. When the cellular telephone service is provided while a subscriber is roaming outside the subscriber’s normal cellular network area, the gross income shall be assigned consistent with the taxpayer’s accounting system to the location of the originating cell site of the call, or to the location of the main cellular switching office that switched the call.
B. Dispute Resolution. If there is a dispute between or among the city and another city or cities as to the service address of a customer who is receiving cellular telephone services and the dispute is not resolved by negotiation among the parties, then the dispute shall be resolved by the city and the other city or cities by submitting the issue for settlement to the Association of Washington Cities (AWC). Once taxes on the disputed revenues have been paid to one of the contesting cities, the cellular telephone service company shall have no further liability with respect to additional taxes, penalties, or interest on the disputed revenues, so long as it promptly changes its billing records for future revenues to comport with the settlement facilitated by the AWC.
C. Authority of Administrator. The director is authorized to represent the city in negotiations with other cities for the proper allocation of cellular telephone service taxes imposed pursuant to this chapter.
D. Rate Change. No change in the rate of tax upon persons engaging in providing cellular telephone service shall apply to business activities occurring before the effective date of the change and, except for a change in the tax rate authorized by RCW 35.21.870, no change in the rate of the tax may take effect sooner than 60 days following the enactment of the ordinance establishing the change. The director shall send to each cellular telephone service company at the address of record a copy of any ordinance changing the rate of tax upon cellular telephone service promptly upon its enactment. (Ord. 4841 § 3, 1995.)